"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saved him; for having stifled envy in gladness for his sake, when (in those bits of our different holidays which overlapped each other) I saw and felt the contrast between our opportunities; for having suffered my harder lot in silence that my mother might not fret, when I felt certain that my father would not interfere! My heart beat as if it would have pumped the tears into my eyes by main force, but I kept them back, and said steadily enough, "Is ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... I have no patience. I fret and tease myself, and fancy all sorts of things, instead of trusting as she did. I don't know how to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... allowed to go wrong, then, old man," he exclaimed almost fiercely. "Don't you fret. But, by Jove, we will be late for dinner!" and afraid to trust himself to say another word, he turned to one of the groups near and at last got from the room. He did not go up to his own, but on into the front hall, and so out into the night. ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by, With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye; Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed, I may not mount on thee again—thou'rt sold, ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... self-conceit with which his whole moral being is indurated—to that loathsome vulgarity which constantly clings round him like a vermined garment from St. Giles'—to that irritable temper which keeps the unhappy man, in spite even of his vanity, in a perpetual fret with himself and all the world beside, and that shews itself equally in his deadly enmities and capricious friendships,—our hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt, we say, is not so much owing to these ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... there ever was assign'd One like this nymph in body and in minde, We wish here in balme, not vainely spent, To fit this maiden with a monument, For brass, and marble, were they seated here, Would fret, or melt in tears, to lye ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... heart, and with the gleaming gates of his heaven brightening the horizon beyond the grave, we may be reformers; but it cannot be in the destructive spirit displayed by some who, in the prophet's language, amid darkness on the earth, "fret themselves, and curse their King and their God, and look upward." Poverty cannot degrade, nor ignorance bedwarf, nor persecution crush, nor dungeon enthral the free, glad spirit of a child of God, erect in its regenerate strength, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... great Tree will forget And let us stay until the spring, If we all beg and coax and fret." But the great Tree did no such thing; He ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... London next day. He started in a fret to be home, but this impatience declined by the way, and by the time we crossed Tamar had sunk to a lethargy. Sore was I to mark the dull gaze he lifted (by habit) at the corner of the road where Constantine comes into view; and sorer the morning ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... years, as the frontiersmen pressed into the West, they continued to fret and strain against the Spanish boundaries. There was no temptation to them to take possession of Canada. The lands south of the Lakes were more fertile than those north of the Lakes, and the climate was better. The few American settlers who did care to go into Canada found people speaking their ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... libera. Free (gratis) senpage. Freedom libereco. Freemason framasono. Freeze glaciigxi. Freight (load) sxargxi. Frenchman Franco. Frenzy frenezeco. Frequent ofta. Frequent vizitadi. Frequency ofteco. Fresco fresko. Fresh fresxa. Fret malkvietigxi. Friar monahxo. Friction frotado. Friend amiko. Friendly amika. Friendship amikeco. Frigate fregato. Fright timo. Frighten timigi. Frightful terura. Frigid glaciiga. Fringe frangxo. Frisk ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... appeared to be! And was he flying from the island like this? The island that had honoured him, that had rewarded him beyond his deserts, and earlier than his dreams, that had suffered no jealousy to impede him, no rivalry to fret him, no disparity of age and service to hold him back—the little island that had seemed to open its arms to him, and to cry, "Philip Christian, son of your father, grandson of your grandfather, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... amused. Then sometimes the public applauded too much, or too little, to please him. "They are like wet wood," he would say, looking round to see what sort of people were present, "this evening; nothing fires them." Then he would vex and fret himself because they did not laugh at the right time, or because they laughed in the wrong places; and so he fretted and worried himself till at last the unhappy man fretted himself into ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... wouldst know of a surety that his legs are broken so that if he be stolen from the tomb his legs carry him not far?" and the soldiers laughed. "Fret not, the bones of the ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... altered by the Editor he would fret for a week. Once when Tom Taylor altered the good Scotch of a "field preacher" (Almanac for 1880) he declared himself "in a great rage," and swore that he would "never forgive" the delinquent. On other occasions, too, he fumed at the desecration ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Feraghan Into the fabric that thy birth began; Iris, narcissus, tulips cloud-band tied, These thou shalt picture for the eye of Man; Henna, Herati, and the Jhelums tide In Sarraband and Saruk be thy guide, And the red dye of Ispahan beside The checkered Chinese fret of ancient gold; —So heed the ban, old as the law is old, Nor weave into thy warp the laughing face, Nor limb, nor body, nor one line of grace, Nor hint, nor tint, nor any veiled device Of Woman who ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... the greatest brain savers is elimination. Every man should try to operate along lines of the least resistance, eliminate the deterrent influences and all things that fret him. ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... conversation, and it is odd how warm and good the social atmosphere of that little gathering became as time went on; then over the dessert, so soon as the waiters had swept away the crumbs and ceased to fret us, one of us would open with perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes' exposition of some specially prepared question, and after him we would deliver ourselves in turn, each for three or four minutes. When every one present had ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... and slightly roll it, it will gather in a soft little roll, with the touch almost of floss silk. The machine-made net is hard, stiff, and wiry, and remains perceptibly so in this test. Also, the mesh of machine-made lace is as regular as though made with a fine machine fret-saw, that of hand-made lace being of varying sizes, and often following the ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... them as wholly composed of errors. To them, the common and current beliefs appear to be simply superstitious. It irks them that humanity should wallow in its ignorance and blindness. They chafe and fret against the organizations which embody and foster what they are firmly convinced is all false. The Church is, in their eyes, only a vast agglomeration of priests, some of them self-deceived through ignorance; most of them ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... said a low, rough voice. "Nowt like sticking together and helping each other in trouble. Bud don't you fret, Mester Dick. Squire's a fine stark man, and the missus has happed him up waarm, and you see the doctor ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... please In honour: he that thus serves, reaps the fruit Of his sweet service; and no jealous dread, Nor base suspect of aught to let his suit, Which causeth oft the lover's heart to bleed, Doth fret his mind, or burneth in his breast: He waileth not by day, nor wakes by night, When every other living thing doth rest; Nor finds his life ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till all his eddying ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... abortive politics or irritating ordinance. Here was contentment in the savage wilderness—communion with Nature in all her unstained purity and beauty. One thought of the many men of mind who had moralized on this primitive life, and, tired of towns, of "the weariness, the fever and the fret" of civilization, had abandoned all and found rest and peace in the ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... me very happy," he said ... "but I'd like you to see for yourself.... And I'd be glad not to have to fret about your safety in my absence. As a bureau of espionage, Popinot's brigade of Apaches is without a peer in Europe. I am positively afraid ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... from our faith all its man made littleness, all its chaos of bickerings, all the fret of the conflicting opinions of those who, after all, are themselves but children searching after truth, and give to the growing girl, a growing religion, the God of the Universe will become her God and she will worship ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... not by parliaments, not by the people, but by God; that we, England, the world, are going God's way, and not our own; then we should look hopefully, peacefully, contentedly, on the matters which are too apt now to fret us; for we should say more often than we do, 'It is the Lord: let him do what ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... lustily, the two-handed skinker! Mary must squeeze out a line propria manu; but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly nervous to letter-writing for a long interval. 'T will please you all to hear that, though I fret like a lion in a net, her present health and spirits are better than they have been for some time past; she is absolutely three years and a half younger, as I tell her, since we ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... waiting, how it calms the heart, brings into constant touch with God, detaches from the fever and the fret which kill, opens our eyes to mark the meanings of our life's history, and makes the divine gifts infinitely more ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... 'Ya may weel fret, mum,' said Mr. Backhouse, interrupting the flood of her reproaches, with the comparative sang-froid of one who knew that, after all, he was the only carrier on the road, and that the vicarage was five miles from the necessaries of life; 'it's a bad job, and I's not ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... indeed nothing that she does not know. But, for her, knowledge is not enough—she desires possession. The poorest man is glorified when she takes him to her heart. She desires no longer to doubt and fret—only to rest and to be quiet. A woman's love when she is true is like a heaven of Sabbaths. A man's, at his best, like a Monday morn when the work of day and week begins. For love, to a true man, is above all things a call to work. And this is more ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... horizon's verge, No black smoke hid the star, no surge Came up to fret the silent sea, No answer ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon you, and you chafe under the friction,—be calm. Stop, rest for a moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... services of thine: and I will repay them to-day with interest. Fear not therefore, neither be afraid. I will go before thee and entreat the king for thee, and will by no means deliver thee into the hands of thine enemies. Wherefore be of good courage, dear friend, and fret not thyself.' Then, pricked at heart, the other said with tears, 'Wo is me! Which shall I first lament, or which first deplore? Condemn my vain preference for my forgetful, thankless and false friends, or blame the mad ingratitude that I have shown ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... his ward gravely, "is only your property at stake? I can manage Chunk, and through him perhaps get others. I am not responsible for changes which I can't help; I am to blame if I sit down idly and helplessly and do nothing better than fret or sulk. Your bitter words of protest are not bread and bring no money. For your sakes as well as my own you must either act ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Obey the Bride you that attend on her. Goe to the feast, reuell and domineere, Carowse full measure to her maiden-head, Be madde and merry, or goe hang your selues: But for my bonny Kate, she must with me: Nay, looke not big, nor stampe, not stare, nor fret, I will be master of what is mine owne, Shee is my goods, my chattels, she is my house, My houshold-stuffe, my field, my barne, My horse, my oxe, my asse, my any thing, And heere she stands, touch her who euer dare, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... much pluck about him as he has. He'll do all right if he doesn't fret himself into a fever ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... it—for why? That fire had sobered Wheeler more than twenty thousand temperance tracts, and all the Sons of the Phoenix and Bands of Hope rolled into one. He never touched a drop of drink since that day, and Jenny's as happy as her kind ever is. I hear she didn't fret over me more than a month, though perhaps that's only what I deserved, writing to her as I did. And then Amelia she said—'No such harm done then after all.' So she ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... may not be able to get this in the mail before we have to leave here.... Kiss my dear little ones for me, tell all the Negroes howdy for me.... Write as soon as you get this. Direct it to me at Dalton, as I expect this will be our post office for the present. Do my dear wife don't fret about me. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Fret not, neither be anxious. What God intends to do He will do. And what we ask believing we shall receive. Never let us get into the common trick of calling unbelief resignation, of asking and then, because we have not faith to believe, putting in a "Thy will be done" ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... he said gruffly. "Did you indeed? Well, they won't. There was no call for you to fret your little self. Still, you've done it; I'll remember that—I'll always remember that. Now you be off ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... "Don't you fret that way, ma'm," he cried earnestly. "If those things happen you reckon are going to, I'll see that no harm, I can help, comes to him. He's just a bright little ray of light, and I guess God didn't set him on this earth to leave him helpless in such ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... good to lose. If I can't have you for a sister I mean to keep you as a chum anyway. And don't fret over Roy. He is feeling terribly just now—I have to listen to his outpourings every day—but he'll get ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... longer half of prosperous life, With little grief, or fear, or fret: She, loved and loving long ago, Is loved ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... north of it. "I think Lee's army and not Richmond is your true objective power. If he comes toward the upper Potomac, follow on his flank, and on the inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stay where he is, fret him, ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... fret, the fever, the unrest endures, But the time flies.... Oh, try, my little lad, Coming so hot and play-worn, to be glad And patient of the long hours that ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... "Don't you fret yourself about that, Jem Backstay. The skipper knows what he's a-doing, and has got a heap o' 'sponsibility on them shoulders o' his'n—a fine ship and a valuable cargo to get home safe to old h'England with a short crew, ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... you have not got, And seem not like to get: For all your clothes and wedding-ring I've little doubt you fret. My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride, Cling closer, closer yet: Your father would give lands for one To ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... their mother, with a shaky voice, "you will have to leave this beautiful, peaceful home. You must say 'good-bye' to all your pets, for soon, very soon, we must leave them all. You must be good children and not fret; but oh! it is very sad. Father is obliged to go ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Chains when he standeth at the Barre of Gods Tribunal, and goe with him too when he goes away from the Judgment-seat, with a Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels; and there shall fret and gnaw his Conscience, because they will be to him ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... John Dement from down at the Rolling Cove. He was a thin, worn man, who looked ten years beyond his forty, his face wrinkled by the constant fret and worry of the ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... husband, 'fret not thyself, for God's sake; thou shouldst be assured that I know what manner of woman thou art, and indeed this morning I have in part had proof thereof. It is true that I went out to go to work; but it seemeth thou knowest not, as I myself knew not, that this is the Feast-day of San Galeone ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... they wanted to talk; and if he was tired, he would complain, and ask them, again and again, when they should get home. Then he was often thirsty, and would tease his father and mother for water, in places where there was no water to be got, and then fret because he was obliged to wait a little while. In consequence of this, his father and mother did not take him very often. When they wanted a quiet, still, pleasant ride, they had to leave Rollo behind. A great many children act just as Rollo ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott
... he had wept. She clung to him full of grieved sympathy. She did what she had not done for a long time, for an exceedingly long time, she kissed him. And shaken in the depths of her being by his "What am I to do?" as by a just reproach, she said contritely: "Don't torture yourself. Don't fret. If you like we'll go there—we'll look for her—we ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... to the periscope until the racing German cruiser drew up to the desired fret on the measured glass McClure clutched the lower port toggle and released a torpedo. Again the jarring motion that indicated the discharge of the missile and the swirl of the compressed air forward. Through the eye of the forward ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... "Fret not for thy sword, Sir Scout." she replied, "neither flatter thyself that Circe wastes her spells on all who come her way. Those only will she ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... and put on her wrappings with a feeling of exultation. He would come soon, smiling and triumphant, and she would not be there! He should fret and wonder, question and search, but when they met again the power ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the cooling airs of peace will calm, renew, and ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... than cunning, but now he is done. Yet by and by he will see that there is ONE more small, unimportant door which he had overlooked, and he proceeds through this too. If he remains now for a long while and sees no other, do not let him fret; doors are like the kingdom of heaven, they come not by observation, least of all do they come by forcing: let them just go on doing what comes nearest, but doing it attentively, and a great wide door will one day spring into existence where there had been no sign of one but a ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... there falls across the silence and the sweetness of the moonlit Hill a strange and sudden sound. It is louder than theology. It is more solemn than the professor's system. Insistent, urging everything before it—the toil of strenuous study, the fret of little trouble, and the dreams of dawning love—the call stirs on. It is ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... Dearg's place, and all the people gave out three loud, high cries, keening their nursling. And after they had keened her it is what Bodb Dearg said: "It is a fret to us our daughter to have died, for her own sake and for the sake of the good man we gave her to, for we are thankful for his friendship and his faithfulness. However," he said, "our friendship with one another will not be broken, for I will give ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... "don't think I envy you; on the contrary, I am as grateful, even more grateful than if such good fortune had fallen to my own lot; but I cannot help fretting at the thought of being left here without you: and I shall fret until I ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he went on, 'directly you hove in view, yonder's Gaffer, and in luck again, by George if he ain't! Scull it is, pardner—don't fret yourself—I didn't touch him.' This was in answer to a quick impatient movement on the part of Gaffer: the speaker at the same time unshipping his scull on that side, and laying his hand on the gunwale of Gaffer's boat and holding ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... hang it all, don't shove a man into a corner. Suppose I asked you to go to Mrs. Ed. and tell her not to fret about trifles, do you suppose she wouldn't, just because you wanted ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... come upon him out of the blue. He could bear poverty, neglect, hardships, even death itself; but imprisonment, with a disgraceful execution as the only end of it, that he was not at first prepared to endure. He had tasted captivity in the Tower once before; he knew the intolerable tedium and fret of it; and the very prospect maddened him. Nor would his thoughts be only or mainly of himself. He would reflect that if he were once condemned, nothing but financial ruin and social obloquy would attend his wife and children; and this it was ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... on Without the friction caused by fret, What greater loads were lightly drawn, More easily were trials met; Then might existence be with blessings rife, And lengthened out like ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... "Oh, don't you fret; I'm not goin' to run the wrong way with you in charge. Didn't you hear me promise Mr. Thornton? Well, you see, I've got a sort o' bad memory, that kind o' won't let me forgit when I make a promise;—bothers me that way a heap sometimes." He smirked in a self-deprecating way, and ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... After the fret and failure of this day, And weariness of thought, O Mother Night, Come with soft kiss to soothe our care away And all our little tumults set to right; Most pitiful of all death's kindred fair, Riding above us through the ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... desired. He had completely run himself into a noose. One of his opponents summed up his political position at that time by saying that he had endeavoured "to conserve by silence his embroidered triumphal mantle." In fact nothing was left for him but to fret. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... pot for the broth; but while she was preparing it, the lamp went out, and there was no more oil in the house, nor any candles. What to do she did not know, for the broth must be made. Abdoollah seeing her very uneasy, said: "Do not fret and tease yourself, but go into the yard, and take some oil out of one of the jars." Morgiana thanked Abdoollah for his advice, took the oil-pot, and went into the yard; when as she came nigh the first jar, the robber within said softly: "Is it time?" Though the robber spoke low, Morgiana ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... "Fret not, Tsarevich! come, lay thee down and sleep. The morning is wiser than the evening!" Then she made him lie down to sleep, and turning into the lovely maiden went forth upon her beautiful balcony, and cried with a piercing voice: "Nurseys—nurseys! ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... well to lighten the ship, but not by throwing overboard the ordnance; for you can but drop them close to the ship's side, and where the water is shallow they will lie up against the side of the ship and fret it, and with the working of the sea make ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... of billows, and the famous Bullers of Buchan, where the sea has forced its way through the solid rock, leaving an arch of triumph to commemorate the passage, and formed a huge round pot where its waters, in the time of storm, rage and fret and foam like a newly imprisoned maniac—a pot which Dr Johnson proposes to substitute for the Red Sea, in the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... moss, or somethin', eh? All right, Mother, don't fret. There ain't really any occasion to, considerin' we've been through somethin' like this at least once every six ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... began to fret and fidget most awfully,—"Beginning of the seasons—why, we may not get away for a week and all the ships will be kept back in ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... yet, however stern the estrangement be, However time with laggard lapse may fret, That haunt of our fond friendship I shall hold As loved this hour as when elate I see Its draperies, dark with absence and regret, Slide softly back ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... been bespoken some time, and could be no longer delayed. Paul was weary of an idle life, and eager to see something of the country in which he found himself. He was in comfortable quarters enough at the farm; but he was growing stronger each day, and was beginning to fret against the fetters which held him from straying ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... there told Mr. Coventry what I had done with my Lord with great satisfaction, and so well pleased home, where I found it almost night, and my wife and the dancing-master alone above, not dancing but talking. Now so deadly full of jealousy I am that my heart and head did so cast about and fret that I could not do any business possibly, but went out to my office, and anon late home again and ready to chide at every thing, and then suddenly to bed and could hardly sleep, yet durst not say any thing, but was forced to say that I had bad news from the Duke concerning ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... I can dare to recommend, is patience and self-control. Don't fret and agitate yourself about what you can't do, but do your best to do calmly what you can. It will be ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... co-dialogist, what are we to think of those who move in conversation by the very principle of interruption? And a variety of the nuisance there is, which I consider equally bad. Men, that do not absolutely interrupt you, are yet continually on the fret to do so, and undisguisedly on the fret all the time you are speaking. To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented before my time, 'non interrumpunt at interrupturiunt.' You can't talk in peace for such people; and as to prosing, which I suppose you've a right to ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... tell me, I pray you, if there be any danger in setting me on the march; me-seems that I am well, or all but so; and I give you my faith that, in my judgment, the biding will henceforth harm me more than mend me, for I do marvellously fret.' The good knight's servitors had already told the surgeon the great desire he had to be at the battle, for every day he had news from the camp of the French, how that they were getting nigh the Spaniards, and there were hopes from day to day of the battle, which would, to his great ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... not shared by my older sister, who otherwise was my constant companion. She went out more than I, not being so afraid of the cold. She used to fret so when my mother was away in the store that it became a custom for her to accompany my mother from the time she was a mere baby. Muffled and rosy and frost-bitten, the tears of cold rolling unnoticed ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... it chanced, when he went along to the Universities that evening, he found he had missed his man—by only a minute or two. He was surprised and troubled; he knew how Lionel would fret. The hall-porter did not know whither Lord Rockminster had gone; that is to say, he almost certainly did know, but it was not his business to tell. Luckily, at this same moment, there was a young ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... readily learn the meaning of that misused word "urbanity." Urbanity is the state of mind adapted to a city, as rusticity is adapted to the country. In each case the perfection of the adaptation is evidenced by a certain ease of manner in the presence of the environment. There is an absence of fret and worry over what is involved in the situation. A countryman does not fret over dust or mud; he knows that they are forms of the good earth out of which he makes his living. He may grumble at the weather, but he is not surprised ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... "Don't fret about that," said the other. "I know a 'spectable old genelman as lives there wot'll give you lodgings for ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... me with a notice, did he? Pamphlett! . . . Well, yes he did, if you want to know. But never you fret: I'm upsides with Pamphlett. This is my house, ma'am: an' here I bide till it pleases ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the bed, and the thin bones are seen through the ragged clothes, does the rich man share his plenty with me, as he ought to do, if his religion wasn't a humbug? When I lie on my death-bed and Mary (bless her!) stands fretting, as I know she will fret," and here his voice faltered a little, "will a rich lady come and take her to her own home if need be, till she can look round, and see what best to do? No, I tell you it's the poor, and the poor only, as does such things for the poor. Don't think to come ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... eternity, they are 'merely players,' and all their busy days 'like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' How absurd, how monotonous, how trivial it all is, all this fret and fume, all these dying joys and only less fleeting pains, all this mill-horse round of work which we pace, unless we are, mill-horse- like, driving a shaft that goes through the wall, and grinds something that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... a-thinkin'," the poor mother said, clinging pathetically to that which gave her consolation and cheer. "I say to myself that it must have been some brain disease took her all of a sudden and made her crazy that-a-way; because God knows she had nothing to fret her ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... the living, as our good neighbours and the city aldermen and magistrates and doctors are doing, will be specially protected of God. Father, let me go! Truly I feel that I have been bidden. Here I should fret myself ill in fruitless longing. Let me go forth with Dinah. Let me obey the call which methinks God has sent me. Truly I think I shall be the safest so. And who can say in these days, take what precaution he will, that he may not already have upon him the dreaded ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... domestic affairs were administered by a respectable-looking elderly man, who performed the part of cook, to his own honor and the entire satisfaction of his master; while a smart but mischievous imp of a boy ran of errands, tended the fires, swept the rooms, and kept old Dominique in a continual fret, by his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of them had ever morally fallen enough even to fret the brow. It is the fall that disfigures. They had lived up to inherited principles (such as they were), and one of the minor of these was, to adapt their contours to whatever ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and the red blossoms of the clover like rubies. The elm-trees reach their long, pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft; and vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. The white village gleams afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds the river,—careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work,—the hot and angry ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... veil of mist between me and the scenes of my youth, adding a poetic glamour to every rememberable form and fact. Each spring when the smell of fresh, uncovered earth returned to fret my nostrils I thought of the wide fields of Iowa, of the level plains of Dakota, and a desire to hear once more the prairie chicken calling from the ridges filled my heart. In the autumn when the wind swept ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... quince-marmalade and tucked petticoats and embroidered chair-covers, things that perish with the using and leave the user worse than they found him. This I call waste and wicked prodigality. Life is too short to permit us to fret about matters of no importance. Where these things can minister to the mind and heart, they are a part of the soul's furniture; but where they only pamper the appetite or the vanity, or any foolish and hurtful lust, they are foolish and hurtful. Be thrifty of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... task, my little man, Is very hard to get? Will it make it any easier For you to sit and fret? Then wouldn't it he wiser Than waiting like a dunce, To go to work in earnest, And ...
— New National First Reader • Charles J. Barnes, et al.
... knowledge—I have none, And yet my song comes native with the warmth. O fret not after knowledge—I have none, And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens At thought of idleness cannot be idle, And he's ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... Squire did not see that this artful woman was playing the stale game of her sex; stimulating his curiosity under pretence of putting him off. He began to fret with suspicion and curiosity, and insisted on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... wear and tear of such an existence has wasted out the giant oaken strength of Mirabeau. A fret and fever that keeps heart and brain on fire: excess of effort, of excitement; excess of all kinds: labour incessant, almost beyond credibility! 'If I had not lived with him,' says Dumont, 'I should never ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... neighbour and were richly rewarded. Ah, the blood, the staring, his grey old fingers! There was a something, if you like, to talk about at the house door; and a something to dream of, per Bacco! I believe the Jew engulfed all her annoyances of the past and all her fret over the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... said John, with equanimity. "Let Lionel Verner produce it, and I'll vacate the next hour. That will never turn up: don't you fret yourself, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... nothin' to fret over," retorted Jason airily. "Besides, you've got 'em too—ev'ry one has; see!" He finished by snatching up the book and spreading before her horrified eyes the pictured figure ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... was she that Avery found further formality an absolute impossibility. She put her arm round the little woman and begged her not to fret. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... you mean by proving—what do you expect to prove?" His hand was heavy on the rein, so that Pard began to fret under the restraint. "You've got to quit running around all over the country with them show folks, and stay at home and behave yourself. You've got to quit hanging out at the Lazy A. I've stood as much as I'm going to ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... a neglected fire had scorched a portion of its trunk. Decay set in. A huge cavity gradually appeared, betokening vital injuries. The soft though tough wood does not patiently endure the annihilating fret of time. Far up in a recess of this cavity a toy boomerang was found, placed there by some provident but forgetful piccaninny. At the date of the discovery of the missile the age of the resident blacks had passed away; but still ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while! His foot . . . my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled his ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... has gone to Switzerland. Switzerland is now, I think, the theatre of important diplomatic intrigues. I think King Constantine's abdication is only temporary; I think King Alexander only reigns for the period of the war. Do not fret—King Constantine knows ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... something about which has for the moment put the record of months aside. This bramble leaf was marked with a grey streak, which coiled and turned and ran along beside the midrib, forming a sort of thoughtless design, a design without an idea. The Greek fret seems to our eyes in its regularity and its repetition to have a human thought in it. The coils and turns upon this leaf, like many other markings of nature, form a designless design, the idea of which is not traceable back ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... "Don't you fret, Susie," ordered Jeb, confident and patronizing. "You do what I say and everything'll be all right. That's the way to get along with me and get nice clothes—do what I say. With them that crosses me I'm mighty ugly. But you ain't a-goin' to cross me. . . . Now, about the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... That is what this man did. When he was still on his litter he used to toss and turn, and abuse the bearers and porters and myself because we moved so slowly. When we stopped for the night he would chafe and fret at the delay; and when the morning came he was the first to wake, if he slept at all, and eager to push on. When at last he was able to walk, he worked himself into a fever again, and it was only when Royce warned him that he would kill himself if he kept on that he submitted ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... what Alma says, Mary. Don't ye fret," returned the man with sudden sharpness, as he rose to his feet. "I guess Alma'll have ter take us 'bout as we ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter |
